1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to an image recording apparatus that is applied to a digital camera, for example. More specifically, the present invention relates to an image recording apparatus that records an image signal on a recording medium having a storing area divided into a plurality of unit areas.
2. Description of the prior art
An example of such kind of a conventional image recording apparatus is disclosed in a Japanese Patent No. 3177491 registered on Apr. 6, 2001. In the prior art, an FAT (File Allocation Table) system is adopted as a file management method of a recording medium. When an unused recording medium is attached to a digital camera, the number of sectors forming one cluster is changed from “4” to “16”. Thus, it is possible to shorten a time required to record image data.
However, when a cluster size is increased, efficiency in the use of the recording medium is decreased. The problem of reduction in the efficiency in the use of the recording medium becomes conspicuous as the capacity of the recording medium is small, that is, the number of frames to be recorded on the recording medium, i.e., the recordable number of frames is few. However, in the prior art, the cluster size is changed to “16” regardless of the recording capacity or the recordable number of frames. Thus, in the prior art, it is possible to reduce a time required to record, but it is impossible to prevent the efficiency in the use of the recording medium from being decreased.